Sunday, May 5, 2019

Representations of Yuan Workman





Back in Beijing.  Overcast, traffic on a Sunday.  Bigger than all the other big cities of the nation.   Our train back from Zhengzhou was a non-stop, straight shot and it went quickly.  I spent the ride reading a recent history of Egypt written by a pundit who had dated my sister in college.  I almost finished it.  But still need to get to Tahrir Square.  I must reach out to him when I’m done, to share some ideas.

This morning it was raining in Zhengzhou.  We stayed at this remarkable and arguably well-overbuilt Millennium Tower that shoots up like a dramatic pagoda and is circled by a mote and lesser office towers.  I had it in mind to head over to the Henan Provincial Museum.  I can remember being strongly impressed by this museum when I saw it for my first and only time back in 1999.  It struck me as far more modern and richer in its collection than anything I’d seen in Beijing.  I knew no one else with their sore legs and feet would be interested in going, so I got a Di Di and headed over myself.

When I arrived, I learned that the museum was under renovation.  But there was a side building which fortunately had a handsome portion of the collection available for viewing.  I have four-weeks’ worth of Chinese history teaching coming up next month and I thought I should use the chance to refresh myself on the remarkable progression.  Highlights:  The early pottery that takes early settlements along the Yellow River in Henan back to 4800 BC.  The wax-worked bronze of the Han Dynasty was beguiling and Party-approved way of describing the Tang as “playful” caught my eyes.  I made it out the exit after the Tang and asked where the story continued.  Errantly, I went across the courtyard to the building on the opposite side, and learned from a guard that despite having thought I’d completed everything I’d apparently missed the Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing work back in the building I’d just come from.    

                                                                                                                   

Reentering a young gal shook her head definitively and said there was no such work inside.  But I believe I have a sixth sense for useless bureaucrats and eventually found a young man who showed me the hall I’d missed.  Here we had some lovely representations of Yuan workmen complete with memorable exaggerated facial expressions and Ming objects required one crouch down low to secure a good view of.  Perhaps it is the case that the best kilns and indeed the best of everything had long since moved down south by the late Ming and Qing. There were only a few Qing objects of interest, at cloisonné pot that was lovely but its solitary presence spoke more than the finery of its design. 



All of the new rail stations seem to look the same and have been filled out with the same concessions.  I just knew there’d be a Starbucks, just like there is in the one in Hangzhou and the station in Hongqiao.  They must have followed a formula not only for the architecture design but also which shops they allowed in.  There was nothing I could see to distinguish this particular station.  The Starbucks was there , but there were no seats so we ambled over with our drinks and Caesar-chicken wraps to the McDonalds, where I bought a twelve yuan bag of fries which I plopped prominently on the table and we killed time trading photos of the hike we’d taken and comparing aches and pains in our legs.



Sunday, 4/21/19

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